Going green by giving up the green

The annual amount of water needed to maintain an average lawn in Orange County is about 33,660 gallons per year, according to researchers at UC Irvine's Center for Hydrologic Modeling.

That's 673 bathtubs full of water per lawn per year.

In an effort to wean Southern Californians off their green grass addiction, the Municipal Water District of Orange County is offering a number of rebates to entice people to remove their lawns, install more efficient smart irrigation systems, and turn to more drought-tolerant plant options such as mulch, rock gardens and succulents.

Whether it's for ecological reasons or simply because they are fed up with pushing that lawn mower, some Tustin residents are jumping on the waterwise bandwagon.

But where to get started? The Tustin News spoke with some of these water-conscious residents, as well as water and landscape experts to help people answer that question.

Gardening 'peaceful' with the lawn gone

"I still spend a big amount of time working in my yard getting my hands dirty," said Eugene Esparza, who removed about 2,300 square feet of lawn last summer and replacing it with drought-resistant and California native plants.

Esparza says the switch to a more water-wise garden hasn't saved him much in terms of time, but it has made gardening a "much more peaceful experience."

"Anybody who has ever owned a weed whacker will tell you that they're horrible machines," Esparza said. He's also happy to not be "pushing a heavy lawnmower and making all kinds of noise and polluting the air."

It hasn't been a year since Esparza removed the turf on his property, so he is unable to say exactly how much water he has saved, although he estimates his savings are about 50 percent. The turf removal also earned him a $2,300 rebate from the Municipal Water District of Orange County.

He has installed drip irrigation for his succulents and multiple rotating stream sprinklers — which use less water than standard sprinklers — for his flowering plants. He says he only turns the water on three times a week for 10 minutes at a time.

"The main motivations were to try to become a more responsible person in terms of reducing my environmental footprint," he said.

Esparza removed his front lawn with the help of a friend and that friend's Bobcat tractor, which he said saved him "a ton of money." That said, if he had to do it over again, he would have rented a disposal bin rather than filling up a trailer and making multiple trips to the dump, a Sisyphean task he described as back-breaking.

"I'm pretty sure I have a herniated disc from it!" he said.

Raising veggies beats mowing the grass

"It was pretty painless," Kurt Christy said about removing 800 square feet of lawn from his back yard and receiving an $800 rebate from the Municipal Water District of Orange County. "We rented a sod cutter, cut the sod, rolled it up, and hauled it off."

He then put down herbicide and a layer of plastic to make sure the grass wouldn't grow back. Then he spread a layer of mulch and built raised planter beds.

Now, nearly a year later, he is about to switch out his winter crop of broccoli, brussels sprouts and bok choy to plant tomatoes, cucumber and watermelon for the summer.

"I was just done getting out the mower and mowing the grass. It took an hour a week, and I have better things to do with my time," said Christy, who works as a home developer and builder. His planter boxes are made of repurposed wood from an old building project.

Christy described himself as "conservation-minded" but "not a hippy, by any means."

"It's more about efficiency, for me, and using resources in the most efficient way," he said.

Although he has two 13-year-old boys, he says the lawn will not be missed much.

"They'll kick your heinie at Halo, but they're not going to beat you at basketball," he said with a laugh.

Christy has plans to replace another corner of his yard with a chicken coup and is "strongly contemplating" taking out his front lawn to put in native plants and rock garden.

"It doesn't make sense to be squirting water on the grass just to go out and mow it every week."

Four tips for using water wisely in landscaping

Neeta Bijoor is a postdoctoral researcher at the UC Irvine's Center for Hydrologic Modeling whose work is focused on outdoor water use in Orange County. She sent the Tustin News four tips, in order of increasing complexity, for people interested in reducing their yard's water footprint.

1. Adjust your irrigation timer to the correct rate. You would need to re-program your timer each month based on the watering calculator available at bewaterwise.com/calculator.html

2. Buy an automatic rain shutoff device to stop irrigation when it rains.

3. Update your irrigation technology.

Buy a "smart" irrigation system. Smart irrigation systems adjust watering based on soil and/or weather conditions, so might not require monthly re-programming. There is a rebate program offered for smart sensors.

You can buy water-efficient sprinkler nozzles through the Rotating Sprinkler Nozzle Rebate Program. These sprinkler nozzles help irrigate more uniformly, so your lawn may need less water.

4. Replace your lawn with more water-efficient land cover. There is also a rebate program offered for turf removal.

When choosing an alternate land cover, it is important to make sure it uses less water. Some native species may not actually be waterwise. Also, it is important to adjust your irrigation system to match the requirements of the new land cover, or it will continue to apply the same amount of water.

For more info about rebates offered by the Municipal Water District of Orange County, visit mwdoc.com